by AJ Myers
When the pressure finally receded and I could think again, I found myself clinging to him and finally admitted the truth, if only to myself. I wanted him to stay with me. I didn’t want him to go—though why I didn’t was beyond me. I wanted him beside me. But, more than that, I wanted him to love me like I was afraid I was starting to love him.
And he was never going to, because I wasn’t ‘The One.’
Maybe Nathan’s soul mate and the damned Bad Karma Fairy were one and the same. Yeah, that would definitely make sense—seeing as they were both out to ruin my already messed up life!
“Shea, can you give Ember and I a few minutes?” Nathan asked, his voice low and as cold as I suddenly felt. I glanced up at him to find him glaring down at me. Surprised, I pulled away from him and took a few steps back. “I think it’s about time someone made her open her damn eyes.”
Grams looked back and forth between us, clearly wondering if it was a good idea to leave us alone together. Finally, though, she nodded. She avoided looking at me as she walked by, but I could have sworn the corner of her mouth was turned up in a smile. Annoyed, I wondered what it was about me that everyone found so funny.
Nathan waited until we heard the door at the foot of the stairs close before turning back to look at me. “Are you always this insecure?” he growled.
“Screw you, Nathan.”
I flipped him off and went to step around him, but his hand latched onto my arm in a vise-like grip. I gave his hand a pointed glance, then looked up to see if he’d taken the hint. He hadn’t. Instead, he used his grip on my arm to pull me closer.
“Answer me, Ember,” he demanded, giving me a little shake that had my teeth clicking together, his face no more than an inch from mine. “Are you always this insecure or is it something I’m doing wrong?”
“It’s called being realistic, Nathan,” I hissed, slamming the palm of my hand into his chest as I tried to pull my other arm free. “And the cold, hard reality is that you like me, maybe even a lot, but you’re never going to love me and we both know it. And I’ll never know if I really love you or not, will I? You made sure of that the night you marked me!”
“So you have it all figured out, do you?” Nathan scoffed, giving me a condescending look. “You know what I think, love? I think you wouldn’t recognize reality if it walked up and introduced itself to you by name.”
“I know enough not to get any closer to you,” I told him, finally managing to tear my arm free as tears filled my eyes and overflowed. “I know that every time you get anywhere near me I end up with either a bruised ego or a broken heart. And I know that you’re going to leave, Nathan. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next week, but you’re eventually going to have to know. You’re going to have to know what you gave up for me. And I can’t even blame you for it, because I would do the same thing for Mr. Right. I would do anything for that guy!”
Even let him go, I finished silently, my heart breaking all over again, knowing good and damned well that the only guy I was ever going to want was standing right in front of me.
For a second, he just stared at me with this desperately sad look in his eyes. Then, he smiled tenderly and took a step forward, then another. Before I knew it, I was pressed against the post at the foot of the bed and his arms were around me, his scent enveloping me.
I expected him to launch his usual assault on my hormones, but he just dropped his forehead to rest against mine with a sigh and closed his eyes. I knew I should push him away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I found myself melting against him, letting myself be held while I cried for what I had lost before I ever had it.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered against my temple. “I’ve made a mess of this from the very beginning, and I am so damned sorry.”
There was none of the usual seductive undertones or controlling arrogance in his voice. It was full of pain and sadness. And when he tipped my chin up so I had to look at him, I saw it in those amazing hazel eyes, as well, mixed with another emotion I recognized but couldn’t exactly identify. It took me a few seconds to understand, but then I realized that he was actually afraid.
Afraid of what? Losing me? That was laughable.
Yes, he whispered in my mind. A wealth of emotion colored that single word, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I’m terrified of losing you, of driving you away, when I’ve only just found you.
“You are everything I have ever wanted, Ember,” he murmured, holding me closer when I gave him a confused look. “You are beautiful, intelligent, funny, irreverent, and you have a will that is stronger than anyone I have ever known. I can’t imagine ever wanting anything more than I want you. You are part of me, the part I’ve been missing for…too long.”
The first time he kissed me flashed across my mind, and I remembered the feeling I’d had that something inside me had been broken and had repaired itself. Or was it that a piece had been missing and I had finally found it?
“You said you’d do anything for Mr. Right,” Nathan continued, his voice rough with emotion. “Prove it, Em. Forgive me.”
I opened my mouth, but words seemed to elude me. Was he saying…? No, he couldn’t be. He’d told me himself that he had a soul mate out there waiting on him. That meant he couldn’t be my Mr. Right.
“I am,” he breathed, catching my face between his hands to stop me when I started to shake my head. “I’m the guy who will yell at you when you’re being reckless and catch you when you fall. I’m the one who will hold you when you cry. I’m the one who will listen to you when you need to talk.
“And I’m the guy who loves you, Em. I will love you every single day of forever,” he said, wiping away the fresh tears sliding down my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I will love you and cherish you and I will prove it to you every day in a million different ways. You have to give me a chance, though, Em. I told you Shea found my soul mate, but you didn’t give me a chance to tell you who it was. It’s you, Ember.”
Oh. My. God. No, there had to be some mistake. I wouldn’t believe it. Soul mates were just a myth people desperately wanted to believe in but never found, weren’t they? I chanced a glance up to find him smiling down at me hopefully, and I finally understood what Grams had meant when she said Nathan knew something I didn’t. I would really have to have a talk with her about that. If she had that kind of classified info. she damned well could have shared it with me. At least that way I would have been prepared. As it was, I was fighting the urge to run, to get as far away as I could as fast as I could.
“Fun, right?” Nathan asked, laughing. I couldn’t say I heard a lot of amusement in the sound, though. “Most people search their entire lives for their soul mates and you and I want to run from ours.”
“You want to run?” Apparently I have a real issue with double standards. Just another character flaw I have to work on later
“I think that time has come and gone,” he murmured, holding me even closer. “The time when I could have walked away has already long since passed.”
“And when was that?” I demanded.
“The moment I laid eyes on you and realized who you were.” He grasped my chin in a gentle grip when I tried to look away. “I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. I wanted to so much, because I know how this ends. But that night at Shea’s, when I held you as you were falling apart, I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew I couldn’t leave you, Ember.”
“So, you’ve known all along,” I whispered, shaking my head. “How? How did you know?”
“Your eyes,” he said softly, trapping my gaze in his. “I would know those eyes anywhere. What about you, Ember? When did you really know? And don’t say ‘just now’ because you’ve known a hell of a lot longer than that.”
When you smiled at me the first time, my mind supplied without any assistance from me. And, heaven help me, it was the truth. The moment he had half-smiled at me across that accident scene was the moment I had known my life was about to change forever. I had written it off as
hormones, but I had known, deep down, that I had just encountered the only man in the world who would ever matter. Part of me had recognized the truth even then.
“Huh,” he grunted, surprised. “I thought it was when I kissed you. You’ve been in denial longer than I thought. Is that why you slapped me?”
“No, I slapped you because you ruined me with that kiss,” I grumbled, irritated when I saw his sense of humor was returning. “How do I know any of this is real, Nathan? How do I know you’re not just using your mark to make me believe you?”
“Because I would never do that to you,” he whispered. The haunted look in his eyes actually made me believe him. “I swear, Em. I have never, and I will never, try to control you like that. I marked you only so I could find you, not to make you my puppet.
“The only part of you I want to claim is your heart, Em,” he said, a deep note of heartache in his tone. “I want you to give me your love willingly, though. Love you have to take is never love. It’s just a sad mockery of it. I want more than that from you.”
I wanted to believe him, I really did. I wanted to believe I was what he wanted. I wanted to believe he could love me. I wanted to believe he would never do the things Jack said he would do. And part of me did believe it. The other part…well, she had her doubts.
“What do you want me to do, Nathan?” I whispered, damning the tears in my eyes. “Am I just supposed to give in and hope for the best?”
“No,” he answered, breathing the words against my lips. “You’re supposed to trust me.”
Before I could give him the list of reasons I had not to trust him, his left hand gripped my hip tightly, his right bunched in my hair, and the kiss he laid on me was the kind that made you forget how to talk. It wasn’t like the kisses we had shared before. It was a kiss clearly meant to stake a claim. He was letting me know I belonged to him and that he wasn’t about to let me go. It was hot and passionate and amazing, and I would have been perfectly happy if it had lasted forever.
“Tell me you want me and only me,” he whispered raggedly when he decided I needed oxygen, letting his lips trail down my neck to the mark he had given me. “Say it, Em.”
“I want you and only you,” I gasped, arching against him as he gently nipped the skin over my mark.
“We are two parts of the same whole,” he breathed, letting his nose glide back up the side of his neck, the coolness of his breath sending delicious shivers down my spine. “Say it.”
“We are two parts of the same whole,” I repeated, mindless to everything but the things he was making me feel.
“I belong to you and you belong to me. Forever,” he murmured, drawing back to look at me.
The power of that gaze rendered me completely mute. It was more than the passion making his eyes glow ever so slightly. It was more than the love I could see shining out so clearly that it was undeniable. There was something sad about it, something almost desperate.
“I belong to you and you belong to me. Forever,” he repeated again, his voice almost commanding in its intensity. “Say it, baby. Out loud.”
“Afraid she can’t do that, bloodsucker,” a mocking voice sneered, shattering the moment in the worst possible way, even as my stomach clenched into a tight knot of dread. “We have a deal, Ember and I. She’s already given herself to me.”
Demon Damage
Nathan whirled around so fast he was almost a blur, placing himself between me and the threat that had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the most romantic moment of my life. Standing on the widow’s walk, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression so cold and evil that I shivered, was my least favorite demon.
“You didn’t listen last night, did you, my love?” Jack asked, his voice cold and his eyes narrowed to slits. “Then, I really don’t know why I’m surprised. You never listen. If you did, this parasite would be gone and out of my way. But here he stands with his hands all over my property. Really, Ember. How many ways are you going to let him trick you into letting him claim you?”
Claim me? I looked up at Nathan to find him looking beyond furious. Oddly enough, I breathed an audible sigh of relief. Hell, he didn’t look guilty. I felt that entitled me to a little relief.
“A soul mate bond isn’t the same thing and he knows it,” Nathan said, reaching back to pull me closer to him. “I’m not going anywhere, Jack. Things have changed. If you want her, you’ll have to kill me to get her.”
For a long moment, Jack just studied him like he’d discovered a fascinating new insect. Then, in this creepily slow way that caused another shudder to slide down my frame, his lips turned up in a smile and he shook his head, making a tsking sound as he did so.
“Nathan, Nathan, Nathan,” he crooned with a soft laugh. “You’re going to get between me and what I want once too often, boy. The only reason I haven’t killed you before now is that you amuse me. But my patience with you has started to wear thin.”
And my patience was starting to wear thin with him. First, he had stalked me to the point where I was considering moving to Mars just for a break. Then, because of him, I had had my life turned upside down and my heart broken. And then, just when it looked like something good might come out of the whole thing, he had to go and ruin that, too.
And last, but not least, there was Jack. I planned to make sure he rotted in Hell for killing my friend. Even if it killed me, he was going down.
As I stood there, listing all the things he had done and messed up in my head, I began to feel all buzzy again. Before it could get too out of hand, though, Nathan reached back and took my hand. I immediately wanted to pull away, scared that I might catch fire again and hurt him, but he tightened his grip and I felt something warm and wonderful pulse between the two of us for a second. I felt that zing of sensation across my mark again and looked up just in time to see Nathan’s lips tilt up a little at the corners.
“I’ll tell you what, Jack,” Nathan said in a glacial tone, giving my hand another gentle squeeze when he felt me relax a little. “For once, face me man to man. The winner gets the girl and the loser gets a nice, shiny box and a long nap.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped. He had not just offered me, his supposed soul mate, up as a prize in their pissing contest.
“You don’t really think you’re a match for me, do you, boy?” Jack scoffed, actually rolling his eyes, both of them completely ignoring me.
“I’ve picked up a few tricks since last time myself,” Nathan said. Something about his expression caused the smug little grin on Jack’s face to slide off like melted butter. “So, what’s it going to be, Jack? Are you going to slither back into that hole you crawled out of? Or do we find out just how tough you really are?”
“Your funeral,” Jack said, shrugging again as he unfolded himself from his perch against the balcony railing.
“What are you doing?” I demanded frantically, grabbing Nathan’s shirt when he stepped toward Jack.
“I’m going to win my girl,” he said, grinning at me over his shoulder. “Be right back.”
Before I could say another word to stop him, he was already halfway across the room. As they started to circle each other, I found a new definition for the word grace. The way they moved was so fluid and sinuous it was like watching a dance.
“Nice to see you’ve finally grown some balls, Nathan,” Jack said tauntingly as he tried to find the best opportunity to catch Nathan off guard. “It’s usually your women who bear my wrath. Guess you’re tired of burying them now, huh?”
When Nathan made his move it was with an eerie kind of calm. He acted like he had been planning his move for years rather than minutes. Jack’s head snapped back and he let out a grunt of pain as Nathan’s big fist caught him square in the mouth. He jumped back with a hiss, spitting blood as he went, and I saw the first real shadows of rage cross his features.
“For every time you touched her, I’m going to take a piece of your skin as payment,” Nathan said coldly as Jack reached up to touch his bus
ted lip. Blood was streaming steadily from the nasty-looking wound, dripping from his chin to pool in the floor at his feet. “For every tear she’s shed because of you, I’m going to break a bone. And for every scream, I’m going to remove a body part, ending with your head.”
Jack’s attack didn’t have the finesse of Nathan’s. He lowered his head and charged with a roar of rage. Like when the demon had headed for him at Grams, Nathan just stood there and watched him come. Just when I was sure he wasn’t going to move in time, he side-stepped and reached out, lightning fast, and stripped another piece of Jack’s flesh. When I saw he was holding an ear, I thought I would throw up.
When Jack turned and charged him again, I saw Nathan smile coldly. He met Jack halfway, slamming into him with the force of a wrecking ball. Their momentum sent them crashing into the wall, leaving a crater in the plaster in the perfect shape of Jack’s body. Even then, Nathan didn’t stop. Jack’s howl of pain and fury was accompanied by the sickening crunch of bones breaking. When he finally managed to shove Nathan off him, his chest looked sunken, like he’d just been flattened by a falling ton of iron.
“Had enough?” Nathan asked him, his expression so cold and furious that I was actually afraid of him for a second. It reminded me of the way he had looked when I’d stopped him from killing Tyler, like he didn’t know anyone or anything else existed except for the person standing in his way.
“We’re only getting started,” Jack said with a crazed grin. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
After ten minutes of cracking bones and gory mutilation, though, it was clear who the better man really was. Nathan had taken a few hits, but Jack was staggering on his feet, bloody and looking confused. When Nathan hit him hard enough to spin him around in a circle, sending blood flying in every direction, I figured Jack would finally cry uncle. Seriously, he didn’t look like he could take much more abuse.
